Pages

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

"But We Were On A Break!"

Oh Twins-centric blog, it's been awhile.

This is mostly because I'm not sure the Twins and I are on speaking terms right now.

This is the result of mainly 2 things...

1) I went to Pittsburgh, and their baseball is way more fun than ours. Yes, the truth hurts. But the Twins bandwagon has been leaking fun for quite some time, and it took having a weekend of pure unadulterated baseball fueled fun of delirious proportion to make me face the unpleasant truth.

For example, their mascot is more fun.

The Parrot actually interacts with fans and players in a playful and fun-loving manner. Sure, TC hits homeruns but he is generally standoffish. (It feels like there might be a metaphor there somewhere, but I don't feel like digging for it). Lipgloss & Baseball made the Pittsburgh trip with me, and her assessment was that the Pirates' Parrot makes TC "look like a giant mascot-y douchebag." She's not wrong.

The people working at their ballpark are so much nicer and more helpful, it felt sort of shaming. It made "Minnesota Nice" look like "Minnesota Sort-of OK But Not THAT Nice if you really think about it," in comparison.

Oh, and they have way better give-aways, concerts, and more creative scoreboard graphics too.

Now, to be fair, maybe our scoreboard graphics will be cooler at Target Field. (Maybe something more exciting than the players rotating 360 degrees, and then staring blankly at the camera trying not to blink? Just a thought.) But there was definitely a certain artistic flair to the Pirates scoreboard presentations that I'm not sure we can equal unless we steal away the dude that does theirs. We'll see.

But beyond the cushy trappings and niceties of PNC Park (Five words: Mix Your Own Slush Puppies!), the team itself seemed to be having more fun. Maybe it's because all of the starting lineup from a year ago had just been traded away and everyone left was relieved to still have a job, or maybe it's because as a longshot to win a division title for a while there's less pressure, but it sure looked enviable anyway.

Our team used to have fun too.

Maybe they still do, but I don't see it. No one looks like they're particularly enjoying themselves much.

Or maybe I'm just projecting. I don't know.

Watching the Twins play has started feeling more like work and less like fun. And I really miss the fun. I wish it would come back.

And now onto reason #2 I don't know if I'm on speaking terms with the Twins right now:

Carl Pavano. I know, I know....big great amazing win the other night. Having picked up and dropped and picked up and dropped Carl in a couple fantasy leagues this season, I'm fully aware that sometimes he has been awesome this season. (Of course, he has also been positively wretched at times too, so let's not get too excited just yet.) But the fact that what felt like our only win in a hundred years came with Carl Pavano at the helm just puts an even finer point on things. When the high point of the team I'm supposed to love becomes Carl PAVANO, I am forced to take a serious personal inventory of our relationship.

So, that's that. The Twins and I have sort of been on a break. I will admit that I have been discreetly seeing other teams on the side. No one in our division, obviously. I'm not cruel.

But really the truth is that the Twins will always have my heart. Whether I like it or not. I'm really just patiently waiting for the fun-loving, adorable, non-public-bitchfest-y (Joe, Joe, and Justin, I am giving you the stink eye there) team that I know and love to come back and give me a reason to stay faithful. I'm sure they will. I just hope it's soon, or I might run off with the Pittsburgh scoreboard graphics guy.

17 comments:

Yes, that could be pretty cool. A small step toward the Twins making amends with me and earning some Fun Points back. I'm waiting for the official word that it's actually him before I do any happy dancing though. I asked the @mlb account for verification, and he said he asked the Twins last night and they'll add him to the list of verified mlb'ers if the Twins confirm it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I just hope he's not boring. Twitter is the one situation where I'm OK with Joe making things interesting.

I think the fact you are still following every game and voicing your displeasure towards how the team is playing/recruiting/whatevering PROVES that you are not a fairweather fan. A fairweather fan would be following the PGA tournament around right now, not focusing on how frustrating our team is making us.

Shake it off bb and remember when the Pirate's mascot was warming up in the field with the players.

"When the high point of the team I'm supposed to love becomes Carl PAVANO, I am forced to take a serious personal inventory of our relationship."

Best.Quote.Ever.

To be fair you have an old stadium and seriously need a scoreboard upgrade.

At least your team doesn't have a saying around the world "believe" that gets vomited in your face every time you point out that there is one actual Mets player in our everyday lineup, and that perhaps, just perhaps, Jeff Francoeur is not the savior from Mt. Sinai.

Maybe bears are just more shy than parrots? Or maybe TC is a douche? Either way, mascots really freak me out, so I'm ok with the ones that are standoffish. Being a Twins fan has been frustrating this season, so if you need to watch other baseball in order to find your joy again, I'm all for it.

Hmm, yeah, I'm getting constantly harassed by friends and co-workers out here (I live in NYC) for my incessant love of the Twins and I keep trying to find ways to defend them, but going home after work and putting on the game just to watch us struggle and lose and see the despair in our team's eyes is a little discouraging.

The Pirates have a lot of talent and are really starting to come together as a team. Talk about a great franchise that's fallen on hard times in the last 20-some years.

TC is no douche. I started working at Gillette Children's Hospital recently and he came in today with two handlers (oddly, from a conversation I overheard, I don't think either of them are from Minnesota...) anyway, I had a cart full of diapers (all clean in packages) and he came up, looked down and one of the packages fell off the cart. HE SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF THE DIAPERS! (I had to make the joke) anyway... I said "well, that's what you get!" and he quickly picked up the package and placed it back on the cart... Totally not a douche. He visited probably 20 or 30 kids and brought a lot of smiles to a lot of faces. Too bad he can't be that interactive at the Dome.

Aside from that, the Twins are doing what they're doing. It's hard to listen to or watch a game. 12 - 2 loss vs. the Royals of all people... Who would have thought our starting pitchers and our bullpen which were very close to being amazing by the end of last year would just be horrible this year. And our offense has had essentially a record year, but can't give us the run support when we need it.

I agree that it would be nice to have things be better, but just remember, it could always be much worse.